"No." He shakes his head. "That's who you are. And anyone who can't see that, including Kane, is going to lose."
My throat tightens. I take a sip of water to push past it.
We finish eating. He clears the plates. I wash them because doing something with my hands keeps me from doing what I actually want to do, which is cross this kitchen and climb this man.
He comes up behind me at the sink. His hands settle on my hips. His chest presses against my back. His mouth finds the spot below my ear that he discovered two nights ago, the one that makes my knees dissolve.
"You've been running all day," he murmurs against my skin. "Let me take care of you."
I turn in his arms. His face is close. Those hazel eyes with the gold flecks are dark in the lamplight, and the teasing is gone. What's left is focused intensity, the same look he had standing outside my door at three in the morning with a gun in his hand.
I wrap my arms around his neck and kiss him.
He lifts me onto the counter. The edge bites into my thighs and I don't care because his mouth is on my neck and his hands are pulling my shirt over my head and the cool kitchen air on my bare skin makes me gasp. He pops the clasp of my bra with one hand, a skill that shouldn't impress me as much as it does, and his mouth drops to my breast.
He sucks my nipple between his lips and my back arches, hands gripping the counter edge. His tongue circles the stiff peak while his hand palms my other breast, thumb rolling over the nipple until both are aching and swollen. I thread my fingers through his hair and pull him closer.
His mouth trails down my stomach. He hooks his fingers into my waistband and drags my pants and underwear down my legs in one motion. I'm bare on his kitchen counter, thighs spread,and he's looking at me with naked hunger that makes my pussy clench around nothing.
He drops to his knees.
"Hayes." My voice is already gone.
His mouth covers me. No teasing. No preamble. His tongue strokes through my folds, parts them, finds my clit, and the first direct contact wrenches a moan out of me that echoes off the cabin walls. He licks me with long, slow strokes, then fast circles, then that devastating suction that he knows, he already knows, turns me inside out.
I grip the back of his head and grind against his mouth. His groan vibrates against my clit and I nearly come from the sound alone. Two fingers push inside me, curling forward, and the dual sensation, his tongue on my clit, his fingers stroking my front wall, builds to a crest so fast I barely have time to breathe before it crashes.
I come hard, legs clamped around his head, hand over my mouth to muffle the scream. He works me through it, gentling his tongue as the spasms fade, pressing soft kisses to my inner thighs.
Before the aftershocks finish, he stands, yanks open his belt, shoves his pants down. His cock is thick and hard, the head slick, and the sight of him this aroused from going down on me sends a fresh wave of heat through my core.
He grips my hips and pulls me to the edge of the counter. Lines himself up and pushes inside me in one deep thrust.
The angle is different from this position. Deeper. He's standing, I'm seated on the counter, and the height difference puts him at the perfect angle to grind against my G-spot with every stroke. My legs wrap around his waist and I pull him in, taking him deeper, and the stretch of him filling me completely makes my eyes roll back.
"Look at me." His hand cups my jaw, tilting my face up. The same gesture from the mountain. The same steady hand. "Stay with me, Lex."
I open my eyes. His face is inches from mine, his brow furrowed with concentration and desire, and the raw tenderness in his expression while he's buried inside me is almost more than I can take.
He thrusts. Slow and deep, pulling almost all the way out and driving back in with a roll of his hips that makes me whimper. He sets a pace that's unhurried and devastating, each stroke deliberate, his eyes locked on mine, watching every micro-expression on my face.
"This is what you need," he says against my mouth. Not asking. Knowing. "To stop being in charge for five goddamn minutes and let someone take care of you."
My breath hitches. Because he's right. He's been right about me from the beginning, this man who memorized my coffee order on day one, who saw through every wall I built, who put his body between me and danger without a second thought.
I grip his shoulders and pull him deeper. "Then take care of me."
His control snaps. The measured rhythm breaks into something harder, faster, his hips driving into me with a force that scoots me back on the counter. His hand grips my ass, holding me in place, and the wet, rhythmic slap of our bodies together fills the cabin. I bury my face in his neck and hold on.
The second orgasm builds from my core outward. A tightening, a pressure, a wave that crests and breaks and pulls him with it. He comes with a groan torn from somewhere deep in his chest, his cock pulsing inside me, his arms wrapped around me so tight I can't tell where I end and he starts.
We stay there. Him standing between my thighs. Me sitting on his counter with my face against his neck, breathing himin. Pine and sweat and something that's just Hayes. His hand strokes up and down my spine in a slow rhythm that makes my eyelids heavy.
"Lex."
"Mm."
"Three days. We set the trap, we catch Kane, and then we figure out what this is. You and me. For real."
